Tell Me Lies (Karaoke style!)

I’m back! I have out smarted the evil trickery of the Microsoft witches that turned my Hard disc into a mouse. So, where were we? I left you all in great anticipation of a karaoke extravanganza. Well, peoples of the world, the time is here. I hope you have flexed your vocal chords. The song is the most inappropriate karaoke song out there and without any guidance vocals I think this could very well beat the worst karaoke experience ever. Of course, you’re more than welcome to make your own vid of your brutally embarrassing performance and the worst performance will get a chance to win a recording session in my kitchudio (no expenses paid; bring your own beer for me… Fosters if it’s not too much trouble).

Tell Me Lies

Everyone wants to be lied to. At least I do like to be lied to. A lot of people tell me for instance that they think my blog is great and that they spend all Monday evening pressing F5. Yes, it’s Tuesday today, just making sure you’re paying attention.

A few years ago I wrote two songs at the same time (A lot of people tell me the songs are great, but then again, I like to be lied to.) Although both songs are similar in many ways, they are also different. The key difference is that one has been recorded and the other one hasn’t and I guess you – being all smart and intelligent – have figured out that “Tell Me Lies” is the one that got recorded. Don’t be fooled though, because Tell Me Lies is far from finished. For instance, the lyrics were never recorded, but I might just publish those next week so you can sing along yourself and I can tell you how wonderful you can sing (see anyone wants to be lied to and I’m happy to oblige).

Tell Me Lies is part two of our adventure in modern orchestra recording, because like last week’s song The New Prometheus, it’s a song for piano and orchestra, however the recording was made on completely different equipment. First, I used Cubase SX3 as the sequencer, second, I used Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO). This is a sample library containing a full orchestra. GPO was the first low budget orchestra library. It was used a lot by students studying composition and it even teaches the musical nitwit the basics of what an orchestra can do. It has one major downside, which undoubtedly has to do with it’s great price. That is its not so great sound. The violins kinda sound like violins, especially when you drown them in reverb, but a clarinet sounds like somebody sitting down on the high register of a mellotron in a fuzzy looking You Tube video with crap sound; something like this. If that’s the sound you’re after, that’s great, but if you’re looking for a clarinet it’s not so great. Nonetheless, Garritan still managed to keep me up quite a few nights with Tell Me Lies as one of the results.

Next week more unfinished business. Stay tuned!

The New Prometheus

When logic was still welcome on the Windows platform, I took my first endeavor on the slippery slope of computer orchestration by loading my Vitious composer samples into Logic’s own EXS24 softsampler… As you can see, dear reader, I hold you in high esteem. As I’m sure you’ve read last week’s entry and are now an expert now on softsamplers and how they work. In case you’re a dumb f*&k, let me elaborate. A sample is a digital representation of sound. It can be anything from a fart and a drum loop, to single notes of an instrument (piano, guitar, you name it). Load the sample into a (soft)sampler (EXS24), which is a software program (nowadays anyway) and when you hook up a keyboard you can actually trigger those samples by playing a key on the keyboard. To finish the whole thing of you want to make a recording and you can do that on a sequencer (Logic). That will give you something like this:

In this song I stitched some decaying left over material together. I have to make a confession. I hate musicals (except the ones by Kander & Ebb). Why do I mention this here? Because I set out to compose one once… Please don’t be shocked… I had already made two attempts at rock operas when I decided to write a musical. I have another confession to make. I love zombie movies. So, it seemed logical to combine the two and write a horror musical called “the New Prometheus” to make the challenge at least slightly exciting. The classics among you will know this was the subtitle of Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein and that was the topic of my musical. I decided to follow the original story (published anonymously in 1818 ) for the most part, with one exception. I turned the scientist’s (Viktor Frankenstein) friend Henry into a Henrietta, to create an interesting love triangle between hero Viktor (19th century nerd), his love affair with adopted sister Elisabeth and the jealous Henrietta. I wrote several treatments and hammered away on my Yamaha PSR 320 to write all the themes for the main characters.

When most of the music was finished and I started writing the lyrics, I finally abandoned the project. I still hated musicals, even if the main character was a limping patched together, grunting zombie. Also, I couldn’t figure out the dance moves for the Creature. The showstopper was the Monster losing one of his limbs in a 6/8 waltz and that – maybe – says it all. So I decided to patch two key themes together and turn it into this orchestra piece.

The opening theme is a variation on the Monster’s theme. The Monster is a very romantic character in the book, so I decided to write romantic and dramatic music for him. The aggressive part that follows is Viktor Frankenstein’s madness. You can see him digging up bodies in the rain and working away with thunder and lightning in the back, while the music pounds on. Then the romantic sequence returns which ends in a desperate cry of the Monster. This is again followed by Viktor’s madness.

Next week, I’ll be back with a different monster. Stay tuned!

Have You Met Ms. Dewey (pt. 3)

As we discovered in the previous two posts Ms Dewey was a pretty funny (fair enough) viral marketing stunt by Microsoft to promote their own search engine, called Live. However, it apparently needs more than a hot, sassy chick of indeterminate race to lure people away from Google. You can imagine the desperation at MS HQ. If love doesn’t win them over what will?

Anyway, back to Have You Met Ms Dewey. It’s a short song (under 3 minutes) that exists in two versions. Version 1 features Ms Dewey herself (actually, I just recorded some audio snippets of the Ms Dewey website and synched them up with my recording). In Version 2 all the Ms Dewey audio samples have been replaced and some additional lyrics were added the complete the story. Excuse me for my vocals. I didn’t have time to process them properly, so they don’t find their place in the mix too well. Also, when you listen closely, you can hear me turning the lyric sheet (yeah, I know, I’m a lazy ass…).

Version 1

Version 2

For those who are curious to find the original samples, go to the website and keep reloading it a few times. One of the intros is the bridge. Also, try searching for “music” for the cowbell section. And while you’re at it I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with a few juvenile searches yourself.

A final note of interest on this song is that the bass is recorded with a Squier Precision Bass. The Dude bought a new bass guitar and when I was joyriding it, I ended up using it for this song.

Okay, that’s that for Ms Dewey. Next week something completely different. Stay tuned…

Hit it, Baby!

Okay, I’m a day late. Let’s blame it on the weather and leave it at that. The weekend was not entirely spent wearing flip flops and inappropriate clothing though. I was also trying to elbow my way to that free spot of yard in Regent’s Park, so I could drink Fosters and belch Bob Dylan songs on some “drunk sod’s” guitar. Somehow, in my busy schedule, I managed to find time to play around with my new toy and discover the record button. And here’s the result.

The song (if you want to call it a song) is called Hitmen and I originally wrote it for a radio show I was planning to do with two of my friends: Paul and Daan. The show never happened, but I did jot down a few themes and this is one of them. The name Hitman refers to the item in the show where we would be looking for new talent, which made us talent snipers… “Hitman”. Thus, a reference to Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme (no, it wasn’t John Barry) could not be left out.

That brings me to the new toy: the Spector, a birthday present from my sweetheart (I love you, honey bunny). Apart from the fact that it’s a great bass to play on (it handles real well, especially when you’re a guitar player), I love the sound. It’s pretty bright and in your face and doesn’t drown in a pool of muddy and greasy “unter tones”. Since I’m only pretending to be a bass player, please permit me to use a pick, which I did on Hitmen. Actually, on Hitmen a bass without a pick is like James Bond without a gun.

Sing Along Thong

I like it when the beat goes da na da na
Baby make your booty go da na da na
Girl I know you wanna show da na da na
That thong th thong thong thong

After reading (or better: listening) to this piece of sheer poetry by the man with the grammatically challenged name, one can only feel every fiber in his (or: her) booty (uhm, I mean body) shiver with pure electrifying inspiration. This spiritual experience drove me into the hands of my guitar and The Sing Along Thong just materialized out of thin air, heavy with Mark Althavan Andrews‘ spiritual presence.

The Sing Along Thong celebrates the traumatized man who brought this 19th century invention to the masses and made millions. Yes, thongs are that old. Doing research for a song can pollute your mind with completely random and irrelevant information you’ll never need and never wanted to know in the first place. Did you know for instance that the word thong comes from the old English word thwong, which means leather cord? And, did you know that apart from the G string there is also a T string and a V string?

With 2.23 minutes SAT is my shortest song to date. Still, it will take you on a roller coaster ride of tempo and style changes. The recording is quite old and was originally made on Logic 5.

I’m not the greatest vocalist in the world (as you can clearly hear), so the ending of this song (a close harmony of 5 different vocal parts) was a particular challenge (especially because of the lack of Auto tune, which is indeed drearily missed in the bass section). Thank God for reverb and the result is not too embarrassing not to be singled out below.

Apart from leaving the ABAB format there are a few other songwriting rules that I break in this song. The first major song writing sin I commit is not repeating the first part of the first verse. The second verse is the same but has a short guitar solo instead of vocals. The second sin is playing the same bridge on three different places in three different ways, but the third time is the finale, so it doesn’t really count…

Sin 1

Sin 2

In fact the bridge is played more often than the verse and in songwriter world this is enough to send you to the gallows pole. See you on the other side…

Oasis In The City

For a while I used to read National Geographic magazine. I think it was an issue in 1997 that featured an article about Central Park in New York City. I’m pretty sure the article was titled Oasis In The City and everyone who’s walked from Midtown to the Park knows that the article’s title was well chosen. Hence, the title for the song.

Though the song mirrors the article to some extent, it’s actually a metaphor for the lives of the two main characters in the song. They’re an elderly immigrant couple thinking back of the time when they arrived in the new world. At times life in the new world has been tough and lonely, but together they could face it all. In the midst of this rat race they have been each other’s oasis.

The song sounds pretty “spacey”. This has been achieved by adding a a double delay to a guitar. I also added a lot of reverb to a clean guitar and re-recorded the same part with a different pick up and panned it to the left. To boost the chorus I replaced the clean guitars with a distorted Les Paul.

Finally, take another listen at the bridge, because something doesn’t add up: it skips two beats.

Lyrics

Do you remember the Chrysler building
We saw when we first arrived?
We sailed from the ocean into the Hudson river
Young, shabby and deprived
There’s a traffic jam on every street corner
Hookers on 42nd street
You work like hell from 6 ‘til late
When you’ve finished you can only sleep

You’re an oasis in the city
Oasis in the city

The statue of Alice in Wonderland
Is where we used to sit
I ate some pretzels and drank a coke
While you smoked your cigarette
The American Elks look rigid and proud
They oversee the entire park
A cold winter day or hot summer night
Manhattan doesn’t sleep and is never dark

There’s an oasis in the city
Oasis in the city

The city is tough and dying inside
A lot of lonely souls live here
The concrete pearls in the evening light
Oh Central park is always here

You’re an oasis in the city
Oasis in the city